iTunes - Is it possible to...

[bjm007]

Originally Posted by nd33

You find it difficult creating a playlist in iTunes?
What specific difficulties are you having with playlists?

Itunes is pretty simple and intuitive for me, Apple are well known for those qualities.
Lossless encoding is a good way to go with iTunes, uses around half the filespace and have been proven to be completely cancel out with the original wave file (hence the lossless ).

_

No playlists are the only thing it can do reassonably well, it's the file management that the thread starter mentioned that it can't do worth a sh#t...

I can go back and forth between the apple os and windows pretty easily, but itunes file management (or lack thereof) is so much a non-starter for me, it borders on the absurd.

Doa google search for anapod and you will see a product that actually is "helpful" to use for this purpose, and I have no affiliation with the company, they just build a good product.

[travisbrown]

Originally Posted by Mike Derrick

"Take it easy"? I wasn't riled up...did it sound like I was?

Sorry Mike, it sounded to me as if you were frustrated by my answer, being dismissive, and reducing it to a semantic issue. I wasn't trying to pick on you. We used to be in a band together. I have good feelings towards you.

Anyways, Wiki, Apple, etc. are just being loose with their definition of media player. It's a misnomer at best. I guess you could call it a media player by proxy. If you pull iTunes apart, there's no native player in there. If one were picky, they wouldn't simply call a jukebox a CD or 45 player; fundamentally jukeboxes are robotic music librarians that retrieve and drop selected media from a catalogue into a playback device. You can't play something in a jukebox without adding it to the library. Sort of what iTunes does with QT.

The reason why I'm being precise about it is that using iTunes for ad hoc playback is like a graphic designer using Extensis Portfolio to quickly preview an image or an audio engineer using loop library software to preview a clip without indexing the media. They are just not the right tools for the job since they are indexing applications. So you asked the question, "is it possible" and I gave you the reason why it isn't. You can't because of the specific and intended function of the application.

Cheers.

[filin]

Originally Posted by Freq18Hz

the function the thread OP is asking for, would require a complete re-tooling of how average end users manage their content.

I was actually trying to help, and as far as I can tell, provided the most useful information here in regards to workflow, auditioning files.

-Freq

Firstly, In what way is suggesting that the OP purchases a whole new computer the most useful information here? And secondly, complete retooling you say? A simple checkbox (that was present in earlier versions of iTunes) would affect users THAT much?

[OldTimey]

Originally Posted by Freq18Hz

FYI I've been building PCs about 10 longer than you have, so you aren't really convincing me about your expertise.

i love gearslutz! whip out the D!cks, get the measuring tape!

Originally Posted by Freq18Hz

This entire thread should be deleted, given the lack of useful info, and boring dry "humor" and middle aged banter.

I actually agree with your on that one.

to the OP: "No" is your answer.

[Blast9]

Originally Posted by nd33

Not exactly what you're looking for, but this may help some people:

While in a playlist in iTunes, selecting songs and holding down the Option key then hitting delete will not only erase the track from the playlist but also from the iTunes library completely.

So if you wanted to drag your temp files to a playlist, you can easily delete them from the library by selecting and deleting them from within the playlist using this method, without having to locate the files amongst your entire library.

This is on a Mac, I'm not sure what the equivalent key is on Windows.





_

DING DING! Thanks mate - this is what you need to know Mike (going back to my earlier post I think this will work for what you want)

Pretty positive there is an equivalent to the option key!

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by Freq18Hz

It doesn't make me feel superior, but it does make me think you are willing to settle.

FYI I've been building PCs about 10 longer than you have, so you aren't really convincing me about your expertise.

I say that windows sucks, because I have been using it every single day since it was released. I've built many a PC daw, still have several, and unless you are an idiot, they are vastly inferior to running on a mac, mostly due to windows. They are however perceived to be cheaper, and people find pirated plugins easily for them.

This entire thread should be deleted, given the lack of useful info, and boring dry "humor" and middle aged banter.

The fact is, iTunes is the most widely distributed audio software in the world, and the function the thread OP is asking for, would require a complete re-tooling of how average end users manage their content.

Again the feature you are looking for, should be handled by the operating system. Mac OS has the Quicklook feature. Windows does not have anything similar, despite what you may think.


If you elect to suffer through windows, I could care less. I was actually trying to help, and as far as I can tell, provided the most useful information here in regards to workflow, auditioning files.

If WMP is working for you, why even bother touching iTunes?



-Freq

Don't know if you're addressing me, or not. Seems like you are. Just because I put together my first hard-disk based DAW system in '97 (when was your first DAW, again?) doesn't mean that was the first time I used a computer.

I've been using computers on a daily basis since 1985. I used a Windows machine to synch MIDI with my 16 channel ADAT studio long before going to hard-drive recording in '97. (I will stipulate, however, that before the MIDI and audio layers were in place in Win 95, Windows 3.x was a pretty clunky system for music, no question.)

Me, I don't think there's a single platform (or DAW, for that matter) that's right for everyone. I do use Macs in other work (though I don't own one) and I think there's much to like with that OS. That said, I don't find myself drawn to it or overly wowed by it.



Now, if you were addressing your comments to me, I'm afraid you must be confusing me with someone else if you think I'm a fan of or use WMP. It's certainly gotten better over the years but it's pretty much everything I don't like in a media player. Hell, if I could get Quicktime to stop putting its insipid and unnecessary 'quickloader' in my boot profile (please, Steve! I'm sick of removing that every time I turn around), I'd be quick say I like QT free better than WMP.


In my first post I offered the OP a number of options to do what he wanted to do, including VLC, MPC, and even QT, as well as acknowledging WinAmp (which is my light media player of choice).

With regard to quick previews of media, if I right click on a media file on my system, I have a choice of a number of players I can play it with. I can add it to the play queue of my main player, I can open it in something super fast loading like VLC or MPC, I can open it in my audio editor or my video editor, depending on file type. That's rt-click and pick an option. And, of course, I can set up any player as the default for a given file type.


You know, it's fine that you feel so smug and superior to some of the rest of us -- but it's not exactly endearing and it certainly doesn't do anything to convince this two-decade-plus computer user that he's wasting his time on the OS of his choice. I've run into plenty of guys like you before over the years... if using a Mac doesn't convince a guy like me, I sincerely doubt being berated by someone like you, will...

[travisbrown]

Originally Posted by theblue1

(I will stipulate, however, that before the MIDI and audio layers were in place in Win 95, Windows 3.x was a pretty clunky system for music, no question.)

Isn't that why we all used Amigas at the time?

Y'know, just to take this thread off in an even greater tangent.

[Blast9]

Originally Posted by Blast9

DING DING! Thanks mate - this is what you need to know Mike (going back to my earlier post I think this will work for what you want)

Pretty positive there is an equivalent to the option key!

- I mean in Windows version

Shit! This can't be - can't find any reference to this in shortcuts other than this one:

Control-R Show where a song file is located

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by travisbrown

Isn't that why we all used Amigas at the time?

Y'know, just to take this thread off in an even greater tangent.

Yeah... The Amigas and the Atari 1040ST (IIRC) -- those looked like rockin' machines. If I also recall correctly, I think one or both of them had true multi-threaded, multitasking OSs and some very good features.

At the time, I never dreamed it would be possible to do serious music work on a PC...

Ten or 12 years later, around the turn of the century, I decided to do a thorough review of where I was, because some of my old Mac pals had given me so much static about my "overgrown adding machine" -- but what I found was that while my OS already had a dedicated multichannel audio and MIDI layer and a developed plug-in API -- which, of course, had made my first 8 ch DAW possible back in '97, whereas pre-OS X, the Mac had had to depend on third party, proprietary systems just for MIDI, not to mention multi-channel audio. I found that I had MIDI latency of about 3 ms but that the best a pre-OS X Mac could do was about 8-9 ms MIDI latency. And all that... all history, now, of course. OS X 10.2 began the process of integrating the audio and MIDI layers and plug in API we know as Core Audio, which was pretty much complete by 10.4, IIRC, and the Mac has turned into an extremely capable audio platform.

[synthoid]

Anyone else noticed that the Preview feature built into the finder in OS X 10.5.5 lets you play any kind of audio file from Finder, without launching an app? I love it! Goodbye iTunes for everything except managing an iPod. And goodbye Quicktime.

This feature probably appeared even earlier than 10.5.5, just took me a while to notice it.

-synthoid

[taturana]

Originally Posted by Freq18Hz

If WMP is working for you, why even bother touching iTunes?


-Freq

that's exactly why i unistalled Itunes on my PC..

no use for it.

[travisbrown]

Originally Posted by synthoid

Anyone else noticed that the Preview feature built into the finder in OS X 10.5.5 lets you play any kind of audio file from Finder, without launching an app? I love it! Goodbye iTunes for everything except managing an iPod. And goodbye Quicktime.

This feature probably appeared even earlier than 10.5.5, just took me a while to notice it.

-synthoid

See post 19 & 23.

Don't be so quick to discard iTunes/Quicktime. Quicklook only plays/displays files when you have the file highlighted. You couldn't use it to play a file while working on something else. It's a very useful thing, esp. for quickly scanning and previewing through lots of loops or clips with simply the arrow keys.